Ontology Language Research Articles

A machine learning approach for optimizing heuristic decision‐making in Web Ontology Language reasoners

AbstractDescription logics (DLs) are formalisms for representing knowledge bases of application domains. The Web Ontology Language (OWL) is a syntactic variant of a very expressive DL. OWL reasoners can infer implied information from OWL ontologies. The performance of OWL reasoners can be severely affected by situations that require decision‐making over many alternatives. Such a nondeterministic behavior is often controlled by heuristics that are based on insufficient information. This article proposes a novel OWL reasoning approach that applies machine learning (ML) to implement pragmatic and optimal decision‐making strategies in such situations. Disjunctions occurring in ontologies are one source of nondeterministic actions in reasoners. We propose two ML‐based approaches to reduce the nondeterminism caused by dealing with disjunctions. The first approach is restricted to propositional DL while the second one can deal with standard DL. Both approaches speed up our ML‐based reasoner by up to two orders of magnitude in comparison to the non‐ML reasoner. Another source of nondeterministic actions is the order in which tableau rules should be applied. On average, our ML‐based approach achieves a speedup of two orders of magnitude when compared to the most expensive rule ordering of the non‐ML reasoner.

Protein ontology on the semantic web for knowledge discovery

The Protein Ontology (PRO) provides an ontological representation of protein-related entities, ranging from protein families to proteoforms to complexes. Protein Ontology Linked Open Data (LOD) exposes, shares, and connects knowledge about protein-related entities on the Semantic Web using Resource Description Framework (RDF), thus enabling integration with other Linked Open Data for biological knowledge discovery. For example, proteins (or variants thereof) can be retrieved on the basis of specific disease associations. As a community resource, we strive to follow the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability (FAIR) principles, disseminate regular updates of our data, support multiple methods for accessing, querying and downloading data in various formats, and provide documentation both for scientists and programmers. PRO Linked Open Data can be browsed via faceted browser interface and queried using SPARQL via YASGUI. RDF data dumps are also available for download. Additionally, we developed RESTful APIs to support programmatic data access. We also provide W3C HCLS specification compliant metadata description for our data. The PRO Linked Open Data is available at https://lod.proconsortium.org/.

A realism-based approach to an ontological representation of symbiotic interactions

BackgroundThe symbiotic interactions that occur between humans and organisms in our environment have a tremendous impact on our health. Recently, there has been a surge in interest in understanding the complex relationships between the microbiome and human health and host immunity against microbial pathogens, among other things. To collect and manage data about these interactions and their complexity, scientists will need ontologies that represent symbiotic interactions as they occur in reality.MethodsWe began with two papers that reviewed the usage of ‘symbiosis’ and related terms in the biology and ecology literature and prominent textbooks. We then analyzed several prominent standard terminologies and ontologies that contain representations of symbiotic interactions, to determine if they appropriately defined ‘symbiosis’ and related terms according to current scientific usage as identified by the review papers. In the process, we identified several subtypes of symbiotic interactions, as well as the characteristics that differentiate them, which we used to propose textual and axiomatic definitions for each subtype of interaction. To both illustrate how to use the ontological representations and definitions we created and provide additional quality assurance on key definitions, we carried out a referent tracking analysis and representation of three scenarios involving symbiotic interactions among organisms.ResultsWe found one definition of ‘symbiosis’ in an existing ontology that was consistent with the vast preponderance of scientific usage in biology and ecology. However, that ontology changed its definition during the course of our work, and discussions are ongoing. We present a new definition that we have proposed. We also define 34 subtypes of symbiosis. Our referent tracking analysis showed that it is necessary to define symbiotic interactions at the level of the individual, rather than at the species level, due to the complex nature in which organisms can go from participating in one type of symbiosis with one organism to participating in another type of symbiosis with a different organism.ConclusionAs a result of our efforts here, we have developed a robust representation of symbiotic interactions using a realism-based approach, which fills a gap in existing biomedical ontologies.

Constructing assembly design model capable of capturing and sharing semantic dynamic motion information in heterogeneous CAD systems

Over the last decades, collaborative assembly design has received much attention, which has provided fruitful results in terms of data models, knowledge-based, and top-down geometric modeling approaches, to name a few. Particularly, researchers have focused their efforts towards assembly relationships within product models, but have limited the scope to static assembly geometric description as currently stated in computer-aided design (CAD) systems. A disruptive vision is assumed in this research work, arguing that the assembly design itself presents a dynamic nature via, especially, dynamic motion. Such a paradigm shift requires an appropriate logical and semantic foundation to augment current CAD systems and data models’ capabilities with the capture of dynamic phenomena such as assembly motions and kinematic behaviors. Traditional CAD systems nowadays can handle the kinematics-related motion-related information; however, the interoperation of this motion-related information from one CAD system to the other is still a limitation of the interoperability standards. To tackle this research challenge, this paper aims at defining an original framework built upon a formal ontology to capture and share dynamic assembly motion among heterogeneous CAD systems. The formal ontology uses spatiotemporal mereotopology, which serves as a theoretical backbone to qualitatively describe the dynamic behavior of a product. This theory addresses the qualitative description of the temporal dimension over the spatial dimension of 3D objects. The proposed ontology is then enhanced to maintain semantic continuity of the spatial and temporal aspects embedded in assembly design ontology models. Built with a Web Ontology Language (OWL) data structure to interact with a CAD system and a motion visualization application, the ontology ensures the dynamic motion information capturing and sharing. SWRL (Semantic Web Rule Language) is utilized to show the semantic reasoning among the moving and non-moving parts of the product assembly. As a result, a semantic articulation ensuring flexibility and interoperability as a competitive industrial edge is demonstrated with proof of concept to be effective in a collaborative assembly design environment.

Ontological approach to Chinese text processing

To implement natural language user interface and an intelligent answer to questions, the knowledgebased semantic model for Chinese language processing is proposed. The article gives careful consideration to the existing methods and various knowledge bases for natural language processing. The analysis of these methods has led to the conclusion that in natural language processing, the knowledge base is the most fundamental and crucial part. The knowledge base makes it possible to ensure processing of a natural language based on initially described knowledge and to explain the processing operations. By virtue of the analysis of various methods for constructing knowledge bases about the English and Chinese languages, an ontological approach to the Chinese language processing was proposed. The Chinese language processing model has two main aspects: the design of knowledge base about the Chinese language and the development of ontology-based knowledge processing machine. The proposed approach is aimed at developing a semantic model of knowledge on the Chinese language. As a stage in the implementation of the approach, I designed the ontology of the Chinese language that can be applied for further processing of the language. This paper considers the preliminary version of the ontology and the principle of building a knowledge base about the Chinese language. There are no uniform standards and evaluation system for designing an ontology. Expansion, refinement and evaluation of the ontology require further research.

Ontology-based knowledge representation for industrial megaprojects analytics using linked data and the semantic web

The fourth industrial revolution has affected most industries, including construction and those within the delivery chain of megaprojects. These major paradigm shifts, however, did not considerably improve the track record in predicting project outcomes and estimating required resources. One reason is the lack of unified data definitions and expandable knowledge representation across project lifecycle to represent megaprojects for analytics. This paper proposes and evaluates a unified ontology for project knowledge representation that facilitates data collection, processing, and utilization for industrial megaprojects through their lifecycle. The proposed Uniform Project Ontology, or UPonto, provides a data infrastructure for project analytics by enabling logical deductions and inferences, and flexible expansion and partitioning of the data utilizing linked data and the semantic web. The ontology facilitates cost normalization processes, temporal queries, and graph queries using SPARQL, while defining universal semantics for a wide range of project risk factors and characteristics based on comprehensive research of the empirical project risk and success literature augmented by practical considerations gained through expert consultations. UPonto forms the basis for a project knowledge graph to utilize unstructured data; it as well provides semantic definitions for smart IoT agents to consume project risk data and knowledge.

Ontology-based Instantaneous Route Suggestion of Enemy Warplanes with Unknown Mission Profile

The routes of warplanes are planned confidentially, and they are not shared with any organization in advance. In some cases, border violations may occur, and as a result, it increases the tension between two states. This situation puts many people at risk and impairs the prestige of the state both economically and socially. In this paper, Ontology-Based Instantaneous Route Suggestion System (SUARSIS) based on semantic approach is proposed to predict and plan routes of warplanes before they reach their target. In the proposed system, we developed an architecture called Ontology-based Route Suggestion by using the OWL (Web Ontology Language) language with realistic data. The aircraft model, aircraft fuel system, features of the military field, and the relations in the semantic context are logically defined through ontology. Synthetic scenarios were created to validate the accuracy of the proposed method. Experimental results show that the proposed system has a good performance on predicting warplane routes.

Conciliatory metaontology, permissive ontology, and nature’s joints

According to the conciliatory view in metaontology, there are multiple possible languages corresponding to the popular positions in ontology. In each of these languages, the term ‘exists’ expresses a distinct “existence-like” property, and consequently the claims associated with each of the rival ontological positions come out true in some such language. Species of the conciliatory view can be distinguished based on claims about how the various existence-like properties are related vis-a-vis metaphysical naturalness. On some versions, all of the existence-like properties are held to be equally natural, such that there is no “metaphysically privileged” language. However on others, there is held to be a most natural existence-like property and hence a most fundamental ontological language. In this paper I defend two views, one metaontological and one ontological. I first defend a version of the conciliatory view according to which there is exactly one perfectly natural existence-like property, but the rest are still “reasonably” natural. I then argue that, assuming this metaontological view, we should accept a permissive ontological view in the fundamental language (i.e. one with a very expansive domain).

DaRLing: A Datalog rewriter for OWL 2 RL ontological reasoning under SPARQL queries

AbstractThe W3C Web Ontology Language (OWL) is a powerful knowledge representation formalism at the basis of many semantic-centric applications. Since its unrestricted usage makes reasoning undecidable already in case of very simple tasks, expressive yet decidable fragments have been identified. Among them, we focus on OWL 2 RL, which offers a rich variety of semantic constructors, apart from supporting all RDFS datatypes. Although popular Web resources - such as DBpedia - fall in OWL 2 RL, only a few systems have been designed and implemented for this fragment. None of them, however, fully satisfy all the following desiderata: (i) being freely available and regularly maintained; (ii) supporting query answering and SPARQL queries; (iii) properly applying the sameAs property without adopting the unique name assumption; (iv) dealing with concrete datatypes. To fill the gap, we present DaRLing, a freely available Datalog rewriter for OWL 2 RL ontological reasoning under SPARQL queries. In particular, we describe its architecture, the rewriting strategies it implements, and the result of an experimental evaluation that demonstrates its practical applicability.

Integrated Question-Answering System for Natural Disaster Domains Based on Social Media Messages Posted at the Time of Disaster

Natural disasters are events that humans cannot control, and Japan has suffered from many such disasters over its long history. Many of these have caused severe damage to human lives and property. These days, numerous Japanese people have gained considerable experience preparing for disasters and are now striving to predict the effects of disasters using social network services (SNSs) to exchange information in real time. Currently, Twitter is the most popular and powerful SNS tool used for disaster response in Japan because it allows users to exchange and disseminate information quickly. However, since almost all of the Japanese-related content is also written in the Japanese language, which restricts most of its benefits to Japanese people, we feel that it is necessary to create a disaster response system that would help people who do not understand Japanese. Accordingly, this paper presents the framework of a question-answering (QA) system that was developed using a Twitter dataset containing more than nine million tweets compiled during the Osaka North Earthquake that occurred on 18 June 2018. We also studied the structure of the questions posed and developed methods for classifying them into particular categories in order to find answers from the dataset using an ontology, word similarity, keyword frequency, and natural language processing. The experimental results presented herein confirm the accuracy of the answer results generated from our proposed system.

An Agent-Based System for Automated Configuration and Coordination of Robotic Operations in Real Time—A Case Study on a Car Floor Welding Process

This paper investigates the feasibility of using an agent-based framework to configure, control and coordinate dynamic, real-time robotic operations with the use of ontology manufacturing principles. Production automation agents use ontology models that represent the knowledge in a manufacturing environment for control and configuration purposes. The ontological representation of the production environment is discussed. Using this framework, the manufacturing resources are capable of autonomously embedding themselves into the existing manufacturing enterprise with minimal human intervention, while, at the same time, the coordination of manufacturing operations is achieved without extensive human involvement. The specific framework was implemented, tested and validated in a feasibility study upon a laboratory robotic assembly cell with typical industrial components, using real data derived from a car-floor welding process.

Ontology Fixing by Using Software Engineering Technology

This paper presents OntologyFixer, a web-based tool that supports a methodology to build, assess, and improve the quality of ontology web language (OWL) ontologies. Using our software, knowledge engineers are able to fix low-quality OWL ontologies (such as those created from natural language documents using ontology learning processes). The fixing process is guided by a set of metrics and fixing mechanisms provided by the tool, and executed primarily through automated changes (inspired by quick fix actions used in the software engineering domain). To evaluate the quality, the tool supports numerical and graphical quality assessments, focusing on ontology content and structure attributes. This tool follows principles, and provides features, typical of scientific software, including user parameter requests, logging, multithreading execution, and experiment repeatability, among others. OntologyFixer architecture takes advantage of model view controller (MVC), strategy, template, and factory design patterns; and decouples graphical user interfaces (GUI) from ontology quality metrics, ontology fixing, and REST (REpresentational State Transfer) API (Application Programming Interface) components (used for pitfall identification, and ontology evaluation). We also separate part of the OntologyFixer functionality into a new package called OntoMetrics, which focuses on the identification of symptoms and the evaluation of the quality of ontologies. Finally, OntologyFixer provides mechanisms to easily develop and integrate new quick fix methods.

Linguistic Natures: Method, Media, and Language Reclamation in the Ecuadorian Amazon

In Napo, Ecuador, many speakers experience the use of the standardized variety Kichwa Unificado in formal education and other forms of institutional language revitalization to be a serious imposition upon their regional varieties of Kichwa. This article explores the assumptions about the nature of language—or what have been called ontologies of language (Hauck and Heurich 2018; Ferguson 2019)—that shape responses to language revitalization in Napo. At stake in debates over language standardization are fundamental assumptions of the nature of language and its connection to personhood. Grassroots Amazonian Kichwa media focused on “listening” and “remembering,” reveal the importance of not only ideological clarification (Kroskrity 2009), but also ontological clarification in language revitalization and advocacy.

A STRUCTURE OF UML PROFILES FOR MODELLING OF GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION IN GIS, ITS AND BIM

Abstract. This study aims to improve the interoperability between models of geospatial information from the applications domains of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and Building Information Models (BIM). A state-of-the-art analysis showed that the Unified Modelling Language (UML) and Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) are used for modelling information in a geospatial context in all three domains, but with different approaches and levels of formality. A structure of formal UML profiles for modelling of geospatial information in GIS, ITS and BIM is suggested and tested for implementation. The Core Geospatial Profile (GCP) and general encoding profiles for the Geography Markup Language (GML) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL) are based on adapted concepts from ISO/TC 211 standards. Community specific profiles for conceptual models and encodings are based on UML profiles and the use of UML for specific information models in the three application domains. The studies and related research showed that the structure of UML profiles could be implemented and used for information modelling in the UML software Enterprise Architect and that existing profiles and information models could be adapted into the framework. Integration of information models in a common approach based on MDA and UML establishes a fundament for improved interoperability through a shared understanding of the digital representation of the real world.

Метод получения информации из онтологии на основе анализа фразы на естественном языке

A method for phrases analyzing in natural languages of inflective type (Ukrainian and Russian) has been developed. The method allows one to outline main expressed ideas and groups of words in the text by which they are stated. The semantic trees of propositions formed in this way, each of which expresses one specific idea, are a convenient source material for constructing queries to the ontology in the SPARQL language. The analysis algorithm is based on the following sequence of basic steps: word tokenize, determining of marker words and phrases, identifying available type of proposition, identifying nouns groups, building a syntactic graph of a sentence, building semantic trees of propositions based on existing types of propositions, substituting parameters from semantic trees of propositions in the corresponding SPARQL query templates. The choice of an appropriate template depends on the type of proposition expressed by a given semantic tree of a proposition. The sets of concepts received as an answer are tied as corresponding answers to the previously defined semantic tree of proposition. In case of non-receipt of information from the ontology, the reduction of noun groups is carried out to express more general concepts and the building queries using them. This allows us to get some answer, although not as accurate as when we use the full noun group. The use of SPARQL query templates requires an a priori known ontology structure, which is also proposed in this paper. Such a system is applicable for dialogue using chat-bots or for automatically receiving answers to questions from the text.

ОНТОЛОГИЧЕСКАЯ УКОРЕНЕННОСТЬ ЯЗЫКОВЫХ ФОРМ КОГНИТИВНЫХ ПРАКТИК В РЕЛИГИОЗНОЙ СОЦИОКУЛЬТУРНОЙ ТРАДИЦИИ: КОМПАРАТИВИСТСКИЙ ПОДХОД

This study examines the ontological problems in the aspect of the ratio of different cognitive practices and their mutual conditionality in the context of communication and their socio-cultural prerequisites, which is possible only if the traditional approach to the distinction between epistemology and faith is revised. Based on the idea of identity of common grounds of cognitive practices “belief” is included in the understanding of interpretation in the communicative situation for true knowledge in each of the modes of being. Belief in the philosophical tradition reveals the ontological foundations of hermeneutics. Three reflections are synthesised: the hermeneutic concept of understanding, the structuralist concept of language, and the psychoanalytic concept of personality. It is necessary to apply the method of phenomenological reduction to the ontological substantiation of hermeneutics in the Christian Orthodox tradition. Hence, the very natural seems the meeting of semantics, linguistics, and onomatodoxy, with the ontology language of Heidegger, the origins of which resides in in Husserl phenomenology. Fundamental ontology and linguistics, cult philosophy - both in different ways open the horizons of substantiation of hermeneutics. The beginning of this justification is the hermeneutic problem in Christianity, which has appeared as a sequence of the question of the relationship between the two Covenants, or two Unions. In the paper, the author attempts to identify the stages of constructing the philosophical concept of Pavel Florensky. As a result, the substantiation of the birth of the world in consciousness by the cult is revealed. Ontological tradenote words can be seen in Florensky through symbols. The symbol makes the transition from a small energy to a larger one, from a small information saturation to a greater one, acting as a lumen of being - when by the name we hear the reality. The word comes into contact with the world that is on the other side of our own psychological state. The word, the symbol shifts all the time from subjective to objective. The communicative model acts as a common point uniting these traditions. The religious approach as part of semiotic approach reveals the horizons of ontological conditionality of language and words, and among the words - the name, as the name plays a central role in the accumulation and transmission of information, understanding of the commonality of this conditionality in the concepts of phenomenology and Christian, Orthodox tradition.

Ontological methods and tools for semantic extension of the media WIKI technology

Practical aspects of ontological approach to organization of intelligent Wiki-based information resources (IR) are considered. We analyze the main features, capabilities and limitations of MediaWiki as a technological platform for development of the Web-based information resource and suggest main directions of its refinement. We propose an abstract model of MediaWiki architecture that formalizes relations between the main components of this software environment and analyze the ways of its semantic extensions based on ontological representation of domain knowledge. An original algorithm of semantic Wiki pages matching with domain ontology is developed. We propose an ontological model of IR that formalizes its knowledge base structure and explicitly performs main features of typical information objects (TIO) of this IR. Such TIOs depend on domain specifics and purposes of IR, therefore their development has to involve domain experts and knowledge engineers. Use of ontology corresponding to the set of Wiki pages (either with semantic markup or without it) provides new IR functions associated with semantic search and navigation. Other important aspect of intelligent Wiki resource development deals with adaptation of user interface to the specifics of IR: enabling various tools of navigation, visualization and content analysis by processing of TIO features enriches IR functionality, reduces access time to information and makes usage of IR more efficient. Developing additional MediaWiki functionality with new requests to the MediaWiki API using TIO templates, extends data analysis and integration capabilities, and offers different, user-focused, IR content views expands the possibilities of data integration and proposes various user-oriented representations of IR content. Wiki resource semantization allows the use knowledge acquired from such IR by external application, or example, by search engines for intelligent Web retrieval. Domain ontologies based on various subsets of the Wiki pages and generated by them thesauri can be used by various Semantic Web applications, both independently or in general technological chain for personified retrieval focused on individual users and their tasks. Approbation of this approach is demonstrated by MAIPS retrieval system. We consider the use semantic similarity of concepts represented by Wiki-pages of IR as an additional way of intelligent navigation between these pages. Such approach allows to group Wiki pages according to user interests by different aspects of their content and structure. Wiki ontologies are considered as the basis for estimation of semantic similarity between domain concepts pertinent to user task. Such elements of Wiki ontology as classes, property values of class instances and relations between them are used as parameters for the quantitative assessment of semantic similarity of Wiki pages. We propose to use local similarity and generate the sets of semantically similar concepts (SSC) that takes into account some subset of page properties and categories defined by user needs. Such sets of SSCs can be considered as user task thesauri for other applications. In addition, we propose to enrich the basic tools of MediaWiki used for access management to the IR content with specialized software code that performs content classification that take into consideration separate namespaces, categories, templates and semantic properties of TIO acquired from Wiki markup. We demonstrate the software implementation of proposed solutions by developing of portal version of the Great Ukrainian Encyclopedia (e-VUE) that contains heterogeneous multimedia content with complex structure. We analyze the specifics of e-VUE knowledge system and develop its formalized TIO representation based on Semantic Web technologies and ontological analysis. Ontological model of e-VUE and original methods of its processing used for this project extend the functionality of the portal in the area of search, navigation, integration and protection of content based on background domain knowledge. In addition, original user interface of e-VUE is developed with an allowance for Encyclopedia knowledge specifics, substantially differs from the standard Wiki, meets the requirements, goals and objectives of this IR and provides a lot of additional features.

Development of a procedure for expert estimation of capabilities in defense planning under multicriterial conditions

Improving the decision-making efficiency in defense planning based on the capabilities of military forces and means for performing purposeful tasks requires new methodological approaches and their implementation in the form of software information-analytical tools. Given the complex information environment of defense planning, it is appropriate for the variants of capabilities development options to be chosen by experts on the methodological basis of multicriterial analysis. The research result is the development of a procedure, in which it is proposed to generate criteria and evaluate alternative options by integrating ontology, the Analytical Hierarchy Process, and the method of directed graphs. The ontological representation of the data ensures the construction of the hierarchical taxonomy of a domain and the formation of the criteria vector. The Analytical Hierarchy Process is used to conduct an expert evaluation of capabilities by their pairwise comparison against determined criteria. Experts’ judgments are visualized and controlled using directed graphs. Application of the procedure will make it possible to ensure efficiency, versatility, and simplicity of technical implementation of a procedure of decision making support. The procedure was tested on the example of choosing a capability to conduct reconnaissance for the benefit of ground artillery. It was shown that the evaluation process in the expert activity is considerably simplified due to the graph visualization. The proposed procedure introduces an innovative tool to achieve strategic goals and accomplish the basic tasks of the defense reform, which is relevant for many countries. The versatility of the procedure creates the basis for its application not only in defense but also in other force departments

Structuring, reuse and analysis of electronic dental data using the Oral Health and Disease Ontology

BackgroundA key challenge for improving the quality of health care is to be able to use a common framework to work with patient information acquired in any of the health and life science disciplines. Patient information collected during dental care exposes many of the challenges that confront a wider scale approach. For example, to improve the quality of dental care, we must be able to collect and analyze data about dental procedures from multiple practices. However, a number of challenges make doing so difficult. First, dental electronic health record (EHR) information is often stored in complex relational databases that are poorly documented. Second, there is not a commonly accepted and implemented database schema for dental EHR systems. Third, integrative work that attempts to bridge dentistry and other settings in healthcare is made difficult by the disconnect between representations of medical information within dental and other disciplines’ EHR systems. As dentistry increasingly concerns itself with the general health of a patient, for example in increased efforts to monitor heart health and systemic disease, the impact of this disconnect becomes more and more severe.To demonstrate how to address these problems, we have developed the open-source Oral Health and Disease Ontology (OHD) and our instance-based representation as a framework for dental and medical health care information. We envision a time when medical record systems use a common data back end that would make interoperating trivial and obviate the need for a dedicated messaging framework to move data between systems.The OHD is not yet complete. It includes enough to be useful and to demonstrate how it is constructed. We demonstrate its utility in an analysis of longevity of dental restorations. Our first narrow use case provides a prototype, and is intended demonstrate a prospective design for a principled data backend that can be used consistently and encompass both dental and medical information in a single framework.ResultsThe OHD contains over 1900 classes and 59 relationships. Most of the classes and relationships were imported from existing OBO Foundry ontologies. Using the LSW2 (LISP Semantic Web) software library, we translated data from a dental practice’s EHR system into a corresponding Web Ontology Language (OWL) representation based on the OHD framework. The OWL representation was then loaded into a triple store, and as a proof of concept, we addressed a question of clinical relevance – a survival analysis of the longevity of resin filling restorations. We provide queries using SPARQL and statistical analysis code in R to demonstrate how to perform clinical research using a framework such as the OHD, and we compare our results with previous studies.ConclusionsThis proof-of-concept project translated data from a single practice. By using dental practice data, we demonstrate that the OHD and the instance-based approach are sufficient to represent data generated in real-world, routine clinical settings. While the OHD is applicable to integration of data from multiple practices with different dental EHR systems, we intend our work to be understood as a prospective design for EHR data storage that would simplify medical informatics. The system has well-understood semantics because of our use of BFO-based realist ontology and its representation in OWL. The data model is a well-defined web standard.

Semantic-based subassembly identification considering non-geometric structure attributes and assembly process factors

The generation of sequence planning becomes a difficult task as the number of part increases. As a consequence, dividing the complex product into multiple subassemblies which contain relatively few parts will decrease sequence planning difficulty. In the process of product assembly, semantic knowledge is an important basis for subassembly identification. Therefore, a semantic knowledge-driven subassembly identification framework is proposed. Generating information and knowledge during product design stage can be effectively utilized to become a variety of input constraints in the process of subassembly identification, including non-geometric structure constraints and assembly process constraints. Firstly, an assembly semantic model framework is constructed by mapping among spatial objects, assembly process and assembly relations, which are defined with Web Ontology Language (OWL) assertions. Next, the datum parts can be determined according to assembly directed graph. The influence of non-geometric structure attributes and assembly process factors on the assemblability was quantitatively expressed in semantics, and the characterization values and comprehensive weight value were deduced through Semantics Web Rule Language (SWRL) rules to construct weighted assembly directed graph. Based on this, simplifying weighted assembly directed graph through node merging and assembling is utilized to identify subassembly. Finally, the effectiveness of the framework is verified by transmission subassembly identification. The main contribution is presenting an ontology-based approach for subassembly identification, which can provide a feasible solution for the issue that mathematics-based subassembly identification approaches have great difficulty in explicitly representing assembly experience and knowledge.